Brazil in uproar as MPs use plane crash to bury bribery bill

The bodies of members of Chapecoense Real and others killed in the Colombian plane crash await repatriation in a mortuary in MedellinRaul Arboleda/Getty Images

Brazil’s congress used nationwide mourning over the loss of a football team to weaken an anti-corruption bill that put them under threat of prosecution, leading lawyers said.

As the nation grieved over the loss of the Chapecoense squad in a plane crash in Colombia, members of the lower house, more than half of whom stand accused of corruption, fraud or other crimes, pushed through a bill that watered down measures to combat bribery and made the work of prosecutors more difficult, they said.

Deltan Dallagnol, head of the team investigating Brazil’s largest corruption scandal at the state-run oil company Petrobras, said: “In the dead of night they took advantage of a moment of national mourning and shock to subvert the proposals.”

Renan Calheiros, head of the senate, tried to rush the “watered-down” anti-corruption bill through the second house but was blockedEVARISTO SA/AFP/Getty Images